Syllabic composition and use frequency: how do they affect stress assignment? A comparison between slow readers and fluent readers

Abstract

Italian words can be stressed either on penultimate or antepenultimate syllables. In both cases, stress assignment is not predictable by rules, but requires a lexical check. Italian words with stress on the penultimate syllable are defined as regular because the proportion of these words is much larger than words with stress on the antepenultimate syllable, defined as irregular. We propose to investigate the influence (in terms of correct stress positioning) of different syllabic and stress structures during "decoding” by both slow readers and fluent readers. Forty-eight children, twenty-four slow and twenty-four fluent readers, decoded “target words” selected on the basis of frequency (high/low frequency) and different syllabic and stress structures: This included both irregular stress (on the third-last syllable) and structures of the open second-last syllables (ending with a vowel); Also regular stress (on the second-last syllable) and an open second-last syllable structure, including regular stress falling on a second-last syllable closed structure (ending with “A” consonant). Subjects’ performances resulted worse in the case of open second-last syllables with irregular and regular stress. Instead, closed, second-last syllable stress created improbable errors. In particular, slow readers are influenced by stress and syllabic structure also in the case of high frequency use lists of words, contrary to the results from fluent readers